Big Bang Day

[e_pepys]

Given that I spent last week locked in Somerville anticommuting gamma matrices, you've probably seen more of the publicity than I have, but in case you missed it... tomorrow (Wednesday) has been dubbed "Big Bang Day". This is a media event when first circulating beams are injected into the LHC. As I'm working on ATLAS, one of the four-ish detectors

Comments

[foreverdirt]

Ooh, cool! Thanks for pointing out the Torchwood episode -- I look forward to that. :)

[wellinghall]

What size aircraft carrier - one of the piddly little British ones, or one of the American super-carriers?

/silly

[e_pepys]

The whole beam has an energy equivalent to an aircraft carrier moving at 30 knots (or 80 kg of TNT if you prefer), not each individual proton. Each proton has an energy of 7 TeV, for a collision energy of 14 TeV (at full energy). 1TeV=1012 eV, so that's 1.1 µJ per proton. There are just lots and lots of protons squeezed into a tiny area.

Those are good photos. Sadly my work on the reconstruction software isn't so photogenic, so I'll make do claiming the whole project as a member of the collaboration.

I didn't see the BBC4 programme, but rather feared that it would be all style over content, given some previous ones.

[edited to fix calculation foolishly done just after I got up]

[tektotherriggen]

Alternatively, the full beam has the same energy as 10 fully loaded Eurostar trains at full service speed (0.5 * 815 tonnes * (300kph)^2 = 34MJ, if I've done my sums correctly. data: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_373 ).

They do NOT want any of that beam to hit the side of the tube.

[emily_shore]

Thanks for the information... I feel a bit smug knowing the inside story on the timing when everyone else is flipping out. :)

Also, no, I don't think you'll destroy the world...

[e_pepys]

XKCD knows thay aren't colliding yet

[wellinghall]

I read that as "Alas, no", and wondered if you wanted the world to be destroyed!

[emily_shore]

Also... may I link to this post? A lot of people on my friends list seem to be misinformed...

[e_pepys]

of course, I'd be glad if you did

[kairos7]

I normally don't automaticaly trust things that I see on blogs, but since I got this link from emily_shore's journal, I will.

This is really interesting. Would you mind if I posted a link to this entry on a forum I belong to that has been discussing the news story in one of its threads?

[e_pepys]

Yes of course, I'd be flattered.

I posted this before Wednesday's switch-on. That went very well, with beams in both directions, though not yet at the same time, so no colliding beams. We did get some data, as you can see in my follow-up post.